Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Research Study on Norwegian Twins Helps Learn More About Social Anxiety

 In this article, researchers found that genes play a role in the risk of developing social anxiety. For over a decade the Norwegian Institute of Public Health had studied around 3000 Norwegian twins and gained information on how mental illness develops over time and to see how both genetics and environment play a role. For the study of how it develops over time, twins were tested once in their twenties and once in their thirties. Around four percent of the participants had social anxiety disorder when tested in their twenties. Another ten percent showed symptoms, but not enough to make a diagnosis. A decade later, five percent had social anxiety disorder and nine percent had shown symptoms. It was discovered that social anxiety seems to fluctuate in people, as two-thirds of the individuals who had social anxiety disorder in their twenties no longer met the standard for diagnosis. 

As for the study of genetic factors and environmental factors and their influence, it was shown that genetics strongly influences the chances of someone developing social anxiety. This could be due to the fact that the personality traits that predominate in social anxiety are introversion and being unstable emotionally, which both are heavily influenced by one's genetics. Despite this, however, it was stated that one's environment plays the biggest part of social anxiety. I found this article very interesting and very important. As aforementioned in previous blog posts, learning more about the factors and causes of mental illnesses is very important for discovering new ways to help treat it. I also enjoyed the "nature versus nurture" aspect of the article, as I have always been a believer that both played parts in developing mental illnesses.

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